Still Life
by lazypadawan
Summary: Anakin hadn't drawn much since he lost his hand. A gift from Padmé inspires Anakin again.


**Still Life**

Anakin opened the wrapping paper and his mouth gaped at the sight of pencils and an old-fashioned bound pad of fine paper. He looked up at a beaming Padmé.

"I'm...I'm touched. I truly am," he stammered.

"I know how much you love to draw," Padmé said. "You said you haven't been able to in a while, with all of your missions."

"I know, which is why I doubt I'll ever draw again. One reason, anyway." He fidgeted with the pencils and paper, looking away from Padmé.

"What are the other reasons?" she asked, perplexed.

"I don't know," he said, still looking away. "I used to draw with my right hand and I haven't had any desire to try with this new one." He flexed the metallic, skeletal fingers of his mechanical hand.

Anakin had given Padmé on his last visit a few of his journals for safekeeping. She'd been amazed at all of his drawings, sketches, and portraits. He'd drawn buildings, his own ship designs, places and people he'd encountered on various worlds, silly cartoons, and portraits of he those he knew. And loved. She'd seen many portraits of herself in those pages. Padmé also saw several portraits and drawings of his mother, which took on a new poignancy now that she was gone.

His skill touched Padmé's soul; a Nubian to her core, her culture valued creativity and the arts. What amazed her even more was his dedication to an art form frequently dismissed as quaint in a galaxy dominated by three-dimensional, technologically-based imagery.

"Do you miss drawing?" she asked him.

He nodded, then glanced at her, guilt on his features. "Please don't think I'm being ungrateful. I don't wish to hurt your feelings," he began.

"You're not hurting my feelings," she said. She stroked back his hair. "If you miss it, then why don't you try it with your new hand? You relearned how to pilot and how to fight with a lightsaber."

"But those are necessary things," Anakin said.

"This is necessary too," Padmé said. "It's part of who you are."

"What I am now is a warrior," he said. "I don't create anymore."

"That's not true. You still have a creative spark in you. We all do. I saw what you did to your starfighter."

Anakin grinned in spite of himself. He had redesigned his fighter to not only improve its capabilities but to reflect his individuality. The loud blue and white stripes and the spoiler fins made his fellow Jedi shake their heads at Anakin's desire to always be different.

Padmé then had an idea. "Why don't you try and draw me, right now?"

Anakin shook his head. "I've never tried to draw you in person before. It was always from my memory and my dreams."

"Please? You've never drawn me as a woman...as your wife," she said. "I would love it if you did."

He always found her earnest tawny-eyed gaze impossible to resist. "Very well. For you I would do anything," he said, caressing her cheek with his left hand.

She smiled brilliantly and placed a warm kiss on his lips. "Wait a moment, I thought of something. I'll be right back." She went to a dresser drawer in their bedroom and returned with a familiar charm bound by a leather cord around her neck.

"The japor snippet." He smiled wistfully. "It seems like a lifetime ago that I gave it to you."

"And I've treasured it since," she said, reclining on a chaise opposite of where Anakin was sitting. Then she removed the white silken robe she'd been wearing, leaving her dressed only in a see-through peignoir of delicate ivory lace.

Anakin stared in amazement as his wife posed seductively for him, her eyes never leaving his.

"Would it be proper for a Senator to have herself depicted this way?" he asked teasingly.

"If it encourages a wonderful artist to create again," she replied. "Now get to work."

Hesitantly, Anakin picked up a pencil with his artificial hand. He bit his lip, then looked back at his subject. Padmé gave him her warmest, most encouraging smile. "You can do it," she said. He exhaled and let the pencil dance over the page as he allowed his natural talent to take over. The room was silent save for the scratching of a pencil on paper as Anakin faithfully rendered Padmé's gentle curves, her exotic beauty, the intensity of her eyes...all that his eyes and heart perceived. He had drawn Padmé several times since boyhood but to have her pose for him like this was beyond anything he'd ever dreamt.

When he was finished, he gestured for Padmé to come over and take a look. She put an arm around his shoulders and bent over to look at the sketch. "It's beautiful," she gasped.

"Thank you," he said. "I wouldn't hang it up in your senatorial offices, though."

Padmé grinned. "Not exactly my usual image. It'll be our private thing."

"Of course," he said, kissing Padmé on the cheek. "What would I ever do without my favorite muse?"

"Just promise me you'll never give up on your gifts," she said.

"I promise, I won't."


End file.
